


The Color of Kings

by ssa_archivist



Series: Color of Kings [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-26
Updated: 2003-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-01 06:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex will never lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Color of Kings

## The Color of Kings

by SkaterBoy

<http://www.livejournal.com/~skaterboyslash>

* * *

Title: The Color of Kings  
Category: Drama  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Clark/Lex  
Summary: Lex will never lose. 

* * *

Feedback: Please. I'm considering a sequel or prequel. 

* * *

Symbolism was very important to Lex. His first exposure to obvious symbolism was in Excelsior when he'd read the Great Gatsby. Ultimately he'd seen that it was about far more than the words on the page. The descriptions of scenery and events were rich with double meaning, dialogue in which every conversation was deeper than the topic on the surface, and the colors. The colors were what Lex liked the most, and he incorporated color into his life as though it were medicine. 

Yellow was the color of weakness, comfort, cowardice. Lex didn't have any yellow in his business life, except for the stationary he used when corresponding with his father or business associates. They were the foolish twins in yellow dresses, chatting it up with hopes of besting him, only they didn't know that Lex's strategy was leagues ahead of theirs, that it was only a matter of time before they fell into his checkmate. 

Lex never lost. 

Lex, appropriately, chose yellow as the color of his Lamborghini. Like Gatsby's car, a symbol of corruption and dishonesty, a tribute to his mode of doing business. There was no such thing as right or wrong when it came to winning, since the ends justified the means. He kept a copy of Machiavelli's _The Prince_ in his desk drawer, to remind him of this fact when he was on a conference call, or bored with Smallville. 

Smallville. The Valley of Ashes to Lex's Metropolis. He still remembered the day the meteors had crashed into Hellhole, Kansas, sealing his fate as Prince of Smallville. Never one to accept a bad situation for what it was, Lex embraced it, used Smallville as a training ground for kings, because even Alexander the Great didn't always get what he wanted. Thrown to the lions by his own father, and Lex accepted it with a shark's grin, waiting for the moment when he would get them to join him and rise up against the injustice that had cast him in the role of Requisite Heir, but never Son or Brother when it would have been so easy. So easy to give in to the sickness, but Lex took his medicine and prepared for mutiny. 

White was the color of false purity, the color of Smallville and Clark and everything that conspired to corrupt Lex's goals. He was supposed to rule the world, not be held back by little towns and boys who wanted him to do what was right, or good. Boys who made a habit of saving his life, who didn't care that he was meant to destroy everything right and good because smalltown small-mindedness equated life with good and death with bad. Boys who looked like men and acted like children, lusted after unattainable girls who would never amount to anything. 

Gray belonged to Smallville and Lionel, lifelessness and apathy. Smallville was reborn under the meteors, only to receive Lex as the replacement for innocence and simplicity. It could have gone unnoticed, except Lex happened to be there that day, and he was determined to change their gray to red. From a pathetic lack of existence to unsullied death. He would shake up this town, this world, and take it for his own. No one would go unnoticed now. Lex would make sure of that. 

Red was the color Lex shared with Clark. The color of the blanket they gave him after he almost drowned in the river, the color of the shirts Clark always wore, unknowing. Clark was unaware, Lex knew that, and Lex determined to _make_ him aware. Of death, of sex, of pain. He hated how simple Clark was, how unshattered, a product of an environment that would bring him only grays. Red was the color of blood and death, and Lex wanted that for himself, but only after he shared it with Clark. Clark had taken death away from insurmountable times, and Lex would take it once, just once, so Clark would hate him too, and realize how precious death and victory were. He'd told Clark their friendship would be legendary, and Lex was determined to take Clark down with him. 

Green, it seemed, would be the mode of Clark's destruction. Lex had never seen Clark anywhere near the color, willingly, and whenever green was involved Clark got sick or ran away or almost died. It fascinated Lex, and green became his favorite color, second only to violet. 

Violet didn't exist for Gatsby. Violet, purple, lavender, all shades of kings. Why Gatsby didn't have violet, Lex understood, because Gatsby was never destined for greatness, nor was anyone else on the Egg. Meaningless existence, predetermined to fade. Violet was the color of kings, the color that symbolized royalty and knowledge, superiority and perfection. It was Alexander's color, while Napoleon's had been red, and Napoleon had lost. 

Lex never lost. 

The light at the end of the tunnel it was not. Green meant something entirely different to Lex, the color of the meteor rocks, a new color for death when green had meant hope before, spring and new life, the blinking light on the dock. Not so for Lex or Smallville, nor Clark when Lex had his way. So Lex adopted green, and violet, hiding the green in his vault until the inevitable conclusion. 

Victory. 

Brought to Lex by the color violet. The color of kings. 


End file.
